Sixteenth Annual Leadership Forum

Chicago Chapter will be meeting in-person at Seyfarth Shaw (The Willis Tower) - 233 S. Wacker Dr., Suite 8000, Chicago, IL 60606

NY Chapter will be meeting in-person at a "watch party" at Seyfarth Shaw - 620 Eighth Ave. New York, NY 10018

DC Chapter will be meeting in-person at a "watch party" at Steptoe - 1330 Connecticut Ave. Room 2L, Washington DC 20036

Karen B. Leetzow

Karen joined the Chicago Stars as the team’s President in December 2023. In her short time in the role, the organization has attracted an executive leadership team that is world class, signed NWSL and U.S. Women’s National Team star Mallory Swanson to - at the time - the most lucrative contract in the history of the league and executed the most valuable kit sponsorship in the history of the organization. On June 8, 2024 the club broke the NWSL attendance record with 35,038 fans in attendance for a historic match at Wrigley Field, the first time women played in that iconic stadium since the 1940s.

Prior to that Karen served as Chief Legal Officer for the U.S. Soccer Federation. In addition to the challenges brought on by COVID - Karen faced an expired collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with the Men’s National Team (MNT), an expiring CBA with the Women’s National Team (WNT), a legal dispute over Equal Pay stemming from the prior WNT CBA, as well as the imminent expiration of all of U.S. Soccer’s major revenue and media agreements. By December 2022, Karen and her team had secured the renewal of the major revenue and media deals, resolved the Equal Pay litigation and were able to achieve the first of its kind equal pay CBAs for both the Men’s and the Women’s National Teams. In October 2021, the Federation and the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) were rocked by allegations of sexualized misconduct in the women’s professional game. Karen, along with a committee of independent members of the Board of Directors, oversaw and facilitated the work of Sally Q. Yates, former Deputy Attorney General of the United States, in an independent investigation culminating in the groundbreaking Yates Report published in October 2022. That same year, Karen was named General Counsel of the Year by Women, Influence & Power in Law and a Law360 MVP · Sports & Betting.

Prior to U.S. Soccer, Karen spent 21 years at NASCAR, Inc. ultimately ending her time there as Senior Vice President and the company’s first female General Counsel. She was responsible for management of the company’s legal and risk strategy as well as that of NASCAR’s 27 affiliated entities. In 2012, Leetzow was named one of the Game Changers: Women in Sports Business by Sports Business Journal.

Ms. Leetzow received her B.A. in Political Science from the University of Vermont, in Burlington, VT. and her J.D. from the American University, Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C.